Taking Care of Our Own
by Crux01
Summary: After Season 4 Quinn is finally out of the CIA but will it prove to be another bad decision? Very dark...


Not been inspired to write for a long time…. So long I have managed to lock myself out of my old Fanfiction account… d'ooh….. So I am starting a new one. Anyway been a Quinn fan since his first appearance in New Car Smell and he has finally inspired me to write this. It's pretty intense but then so is he…..

**Taking Care of our Own**

The bullet came out of a benign blue sky on a day that appeared to be bringing nothing but peace. It hit him hard and fast, ripping through the wall of his gut, tearing through his abdominal cavity and eviscerating his intestines in one agonising instant. He fell backwards heavily to the dusty sidewalk, as the air in his lungs rushed out in a surprised groan which changed mid sound into a pain filled growl.

Quinn lay still, gulping in air, as his body spasmed. As if he was no longer in control his hands mechanically investigated the wound site. The message they sent back to his struggling mind was not good... gut shot. This diagnosis was confirmed to the one-time-assassin by the stinking smell of blood and shit that forced its way into his struggling consciousness. His experience told him then; from the stench, to the pain, to the blood drenching his hands; he had no chance. He had only minutes and nothing could save him.

The thought cut into his mind and strangely calmed him. How many times in chaos and peril had his training kicked in? How many times had he simply overlooked the emotion and fear in order to do what must be done? It was no different this time; his mind went into overdrive and thoughts rushed through it, each staying only an instance but each etched in perfect clarity.

His first thought was one of disbelief. How could he still be on somebody's kill list? Didn't the bastards know he was retired? It was three months since he had taken the final psyche evaluation, six since the carnage of the clusterfuck in Islamabad. He had finally achieved what he wanted- he had walked away from all of it.

The first month had been hardest of course, drinking himself into a stupor and out again in a wretched spiral of despair that threatened his very existence but when it had come down to it, he had either lacked the courage or had too much pride to drink himself to death, he still was not sure which. He had hit rock bottom it was true, but from there he had only one way to go and slowly he had found himself, pulled himself back. He had been getting better. His rational, trained mind brought him back to the catastrophic present by immediately responding with the fact that the CIA didn't advertise their retirees, although that journalist he had spoken to the day before had known somehow, he hadn't told her anything but he had been curious enough as to what her angle actually was to have the meeting even though protocol was clear that he should not. To his knowledge, and for obvious reasons, the CIA didn't make it public that those poor, damaged souls who actually managed to pull themselves together enough to find their way out of the rabbit hole were no longer in the game. And it had to be said that he had made enough enemies in his black ops career, he couldn't even recall how many people he had killed, let alone their names, that this could just be the revenge-fuelled action of a grieving relative or a friend of someone he had murdered.

It was certainly the action of a fucking amateur, Quinn mused, with professional pride. The shot had been the worst possible - no outright kill but no chance of survival... Unless of course an agonised, pointless death was the effect his attacker was looking for. It was certainly being achieved, Quinn could testify to that as the pain crashed through him, his skin was bathed in clammy sweat and his blood continued to spurt ominously into a small but growing scarlet puddle beside him.

Quinn coughed, trying to swallow back the blood, the metallic taste in his mouth and take in air but his lungs felt like they were being held in a vice and he was shuddering uncontrollably. He squeezed the wound, trying pathetically to apply pressure but his rational mind knew that the shot must have severed his artery because there was just too much blood and it just kept on coming.

Desperately searching for hope, he conjured up the face of a young boy. It had taken time but Julia, just this past weekend, had let him spend an afternoon in John Junior's company. It had been awkward at first but, much to the mother's initial dismay, father and son had broken down the distance between each other by playing a game with John's action soldiers. It had happened towards the end of the afternoon, when Quinn had been calling in an air strike and made all the relevant coms beeping noises that only someone who had actually been in the business would know. John had stopped, his wide blue eyes entranced, and stared, his game completely forgotten. Not quite sure what he had done, Quinn made the noises again, and John had begun to giggle. The giggle soon transformed into the helpless, all consuming laughter that only a child can give. It was at that moment that Quinn had felt it, felt something deep inside that had been twisted and cold for so long he had forgotten it should be different, suddenly flicker and warm. And he had understood at last, the way to mend his desolated soul, shrivelled from all the horror, was in the simplicity of common life. In that moment his child's laughter had nourishingly caressed something in him that nothing else on the planet had even touched. A lump jumped into his throat and tears into his eyes at the sheer simple enormity of this revelation. Sensing his awe, Julia had reached across and given him a cherishing hug and the warmth inside him had grown.

He had believed then that some sort of redemption was possible for him, though he would never clean away the evil stain of what he had once been and what he had done, he had thought that he would at least learn to live with it and in doing so bring a little good into a small part of the world.

The bitter frailty of that forlorn hope, now shattered by a single gun shot, caused him to let out a cracking chuckle as he realised even that had now been wrenched away from him.

He was aware that people were gathering around him, all hanging back as if unsure of what to do. The irony of the situation was not lost on Quinn; he had done what he had done, sold his soul to the terror-filled abyss, to try to stop these people having to witness such evil, tried in vain to keep the unimaginable terror away from them and now he was the one who was dying so brutally and vividly right in front of them.

"Quinn!"

The voice cut through the dull murmur of the bovine crowd. Quinn shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. No, not here, not now... And yet it had to be her. Who else would be using that name now? Who else had a voice that even now caused his shredded bowels to shiver with sheer magnetic attraction? Through the stink of his own demise, he caught a whiff of her familiar perfume... Carrie.

She was beside him then, gathering him up into her smothering embrace and gently running her hand through his hair. "Easy," she whispered.

Quinn opened his eyes and the colour had leeched out of the world like a water-colour left out in the rain - all was black and white ... and fading fast. The violence of his shuddering was now intensified as shock took over and his body began to close down. His heart was drumming a desperate tattoo that threatened to overwrite all other sounds. He blinked, trying to focus on Carrie's features but all he could see was her eyes, eyes that looked down on him with only one sentiment. He looked into them and he saw what he had seen there many times before, the hard detached closure of a job done. And then he understood.

"We take care of our own," she whispered hoarsely but he heard her even over the dwindling, dying screams of all of his senses.

Quinn summoned his remaining strength, he lifted his hands away from the wound to grasp her shirt, they left bloody dark prints on the starched material, as he pulled her as close as he could. He pronounced each word with clinical precision for they were to be his last.

"Fuck. You. Carrie."

And then, as his strength left him and he fell back into her arms, the screaming in his soul fell silent and the pain stopped...


End file.
